The Power of the Creative Process

With the Academy Awards airing a few weeks ago, it spurred my interest in who holds the record for most Oscar nominations and wins. I was surprised to find out it is Walt Disney. Over the course of his illustrious career, Disney was nominated for 59 Oscars and won 22. In addition, he received 4 special Oscars.

Disney was a very unusual student. When his elementary school teacher asked the class to sketch the flower vase she placed on her desk, young Walt sketched it with added arms, legs, and a smiling flower at the top. His teacher scolded him for not paying attention to her instructions to just draw the vase!  Walt courteously listened to her complaints but continued to draw what he saw in his vivid imagination.  Years later, animals, plants and objects with human voices and attributes became a Disney trademark.

By age twenty, Walt Disney was hired to draw cartoons for the Kansas City Film Ad Company. Within a short time he was drawing cartoons that moved but they still didn’t move in the way he envisioned they could. He studied and worked tirelessly towards making drawings move in more graceful and sophisticated ways so they would have greater realism. These drawings and experiments took thousands of hours to perfect.

Disney was the first person to sell the idea of having a cartoon open for a feature film. As a door to door salesman, he sold cartoons by the linear foot to local movie theatres. Most theatre owners didn’t understand why a movie-goer would want to watch this new form of entertainment. Walt was not put off. His focus, determination, and passion for animation and creating laugh-out-loud characters won over all opposition and eventually made him a legend.

When he was 28, he came up with the idea of a little character named Mortimer Mouse.  His wife thought that it was a dreadful name and suggested something more enticing like Mickey Mouse. The name really stuck a chord within Disney. Intrigued by the new talking films that were beginning to gain in popularity, Disney worked tirelessly to synchronize Mickey’s movements to sound, making it the first carton of its kind. He named his first animated talking cartoon Steamboat Willie. The year was 1927. Most theatre owners told him that the public would not be interested in a mouse that talked. Disney pushed ahead despite their cynicism. Within a few years, Mickey Mouse was the most popular cartoon character in the country. By 1935, the Mickey Mouse Club had over 1.5 million members.

As Abraham Maslow once described it, the creative process has a right brain inspirational phase and a left brain planning and work phase. Disney was a man with remarkable creativity, determination, tenacity, and follow through. Reading about Disney’s life is deeply inspiring. It is inspiring because we can create on our own unique level of creativity and make our artistic stirrings tangible. We may never achieve what Disney achieved but we can accomplish something we can be delighted with and very proud of.